Dancing.Dancing and twirling, singing, talking…mist…gavebh mo leishgel…faster, skirts kicking between her legs, boots scuffing the polished floor, twirling, twirling, now spinning and spinning and spinning…a flash of leafy green eyes.The smell of leaves…a forest…decaying foliage…wind, growing stronger and stronger as they twirled and spun faster and faster, long dark hair tied back swinging in a turn. Not hers.His. His hair. His eyes.His smell…like the trees?Like the dark in a forest, like the musky marsh.She felt safe…exhilarated, but safe…home…mist, talking, mo pog, boideach, my heart, my elemental…She snapped her eyes open as soon as she realized it was a dream.She woke to the same “man” for three mornings.It would be nice if she could say that in reality.

Becca rolled over and punched her pillow.Why was she dreaming about that…whoever or whatever?Her cat purred her furry good-morning and sniffed at her face.“Hey Mow-Mow.”She automatically scratched the furry head behind the ears in her favorite spot.Mow-Mow gently tapped Becca’s face with her paw and she opened her eyes again.The sun was peeking in around the curtains, so it must be late.Oh, crap.

A wave of inevitability swept in vague panic down her spine, disrupting her comfortable nest of a bed.What would she see this morning when she looked over at the clocks on the nightstand? And the wall? And the dresser?She was supposed to wake at six a-m.She made sure she’d set all the settable clocks to alarm at zero-six-hundred-hours.

Becca squeezed her eyes shut, scooted up to put her back at the wooden headboard so she could easily face the myriad of clocks around the room.

“Sh-i-t.” the groan growled out from between clenched teeth as soon as she looked.“Robbie’s gonna kill me.”She scrambled out of bed and blanked her mind of the fifteen clocks scattered about her bedroom, all stopped at five-fifty-nine a-m.Even the ones she’d set wrong.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” The only clock that never missed a beat over the past few dreams was the huge grandfather clock standing sentinel in the living room.It bonged a single, doleful greeting at the quarter-hour past eight.The problem was that the clock could bong all it wanted to, every quarter-hour in increasing number, but she almost never heard it.Even the tick-tock of the pendulum folded away in the back of her mind like so much white noise.Too bad she couldn’t set an alarm on it.

And now she was going to be late because a dream stopped her clocks.She checked her cell phone.Crap.That too.How the hell could she explain that to Robbie?The thoughts in her mind skid wickedly around as she whipped together an outfit.How in the hell was she to tell Robbie that it wasn’t her fault she was late for the third time this week?He’d probably blame Becca’s inadequacy at setting clocks if she told him she went out and spent her entire savings of two hundred dollars and change on every kind of clock she could find.

He wouldn’t only blame her but he’d laugh.He’d laugh at her because he knew if he’d set the clocks, they would work fine.Everything was always perfect for Robbie.

Perfect Robbie.Robert Avery Beckam The Third.And he never let her forget that he was The Third and she was just Becca.It never mattered to him that she was his baby sister or that when they were kids, she worshiped the ground he walked on.It never mattered to him that she blindly took the blame for any mischief he performed just because she wanted his acceptance.

Nope, it only mattered that Becca couldn’t hold down a job or a relationship.It only mattered that she didn’t make it into college and was unmarried at the ungodly old age of twenty three.It only mattered that HE’d graduated Suma-come-whatever from UGA, president of some three-letter fraternity that Robert Avery Beckam the First and Second legacied him into.

Long Live Robbie THE THIRD.The FUCKING THIRD!

Becca slammed the drawer shut and stumbled into her jeans.They, at least, didn’t judge her for being perfection-challenged.And what was so bad about being an assistant, or a go-to-girl?That was a necessary job, too.Necessary enough that Robbie offered the job to Becca when his last one quit in a fit of baklava.Apparently the Greek festival is not the place to upbraid your assistant.Too sticky by far.

Since Becca didn’t have the long list of credentials you needed to be a well-paid assistant, just experience and a smile, and since the tiny efficiency loft above a carriage house was part of the pay…well, a struggling girl couldn’t say no to the brother she hated hating.

Grrr.Her hair was a mess.She’d forgotten to braid it or put it up in a bun or something before going to bed last night.She’d just been so tired from spending all day with Robbie, jumping at his every command, she just forgot.She threw it back in a ponytail, grabbed her favorite Tobasco ballcap and ran out the door.

Since she couldn’t really drive a car the four blocks necessary, she rode a bike to Robbie’s office as fast as she could.Beckam Restorations was one of the few companies in town that did almost all of the work by hand so they—Robbie was in high demand.

Guilt huffed through her as she peddled down the alley and hung a left onto Drayton Street.Her job was to “assist” him throughout the day.She did all the little demeaning things, even the things he couldn’t get a paid employee to do.He needed her and she’d let him down.Again.

She locked her bike up at the meter beside the old gas station Robbie renovated to fit the company.They didn’t make stations like this one anymore.This was almost a house on it’s own, just with a ginormous awning that used to hover over gas pumps.Odd that the windows weren’t lit from the inside like normal.She should be able to see Gina and Sherry at the receptionist desk.

She reached for the doors when a sneaking suspicion came over her.The doors were locked?There wasn’t much traffic for a Fri—oh, crap.Oh holy crap, what day was it?!?

She got paid yesterday, so yesterday was Friday.Oh how shitty was that!She got herself all worked up and panicked over a Saturday.

She kicked the heavy cement planter for good measure.

The littlest niggling thought said that she could have spent time in bed enjoying the man of her dreams.A bigger, sledgehammer thought said that she shouldn’t spend time thinking about a dream when she should be looking for a real man to take care of her.

Yep, Mom’s conscience, loud and clear.Good to know something was working normal.Becca rolled her eyes and fished for the few coins jingling in her pocket.A dollar twenty nine.

That looked like a cup of coffee to her, so she unlocked her bike and pedaled down to a nearby coffee shop.Might as well go someplace enjoyable since she was out already.

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